


I thought this was a teaching hospital!

by choppyVy



Series: What We Keep [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Nico thinks he is doing the right thing, Pre-Relationship, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, for everyone - especially Levi, inner conflict, post-first kiss, prolonged mental self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22948507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choppyVy/pseuds/choppyVy
Summary: Nico tries to talk himself out of wanting anything from Levi.
Relationships: Nico Kim & Levi Schmitt, Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Series: What We Keep [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649224
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	I thought this was a teaching hospital!

“I thought this was a teaching hospital!” Levi calls after him.

  
Nico falters in his steps, is about to turn and face the man he has kissed breathless, just a mere moment ago – can still feel on his lips, against his body – when he hears the noisy slide of the elevator doors closing again, convincing him it is too late anyway.

‘The damage is done.’

Cute nerdy weird apparently newly queer guy ‘… will hate me now.’

He keeps walking through the hospital’s busy halls until they grow quieter around him.

‘It’s for the best.’

Nico is certain, wants to be.

‘I cannot teach you how to do this. I don’t … I can’t even …..’

Nico keeps walking, finds the next empty on-call room, turns the lock, turns himself, and slumps with a sudden feeling of utter emptiness and dread against the door.

‘I’ll never be good enough.’

His head falls back against the wooden surface with a thump that sounds more painful than skull meeting door actually is. Or maybe Nico’s body is just distracted by that other pain running with an all-encompassing reach in his veins alongside his blood.

“No matter what I -,” Nico whispers to himself eyes fixed to the ceiling before they slip shut, chokes on the foreign thought drilled into him so heavily all his life somewhere along the way it has become his.

‘No matter what I do …. It’s …, I’m not good enough.’

Where fiction is twisted into fact someone always loses.

His hands are shaking as he fists them into the fabric under his fingertips.

‘Your lips,’ Nico licks his.

‘I lied to you.’ And Nico does not want to, cannot think about why that truly is. Why he felt the need to. So it is pushed back and aside.

Nico lets out a pained groan, eyes squeezing shut, lips twitching into an unhappy grimace alongside them, realizing he cares about cute nerdy weird guy too much already. Already, not everything allows itself to be pushed back into that place he keeps it. Out of force. Out of habit.

‘I care.'

If he can trust the spiking pain in his chest, the air has grown much thinner around him in the last seconds.

'Well, no shit, Nico! Why else would you be in here right now. Hiding.' Hiding from others is always an option, much harder work, hiding from yourself.

Nico is well practised. But some things … no amount of practice can ever make perfect.

‘No one needs the mess I am. Especially, not on that journey. I can’t even help myself. You so don’t deserve that.’

Levi Schmitt will find someone better, Nico is certain of it.

Nico just has to figure out how to stay away from cute nerdy weird guy until he has ‘… found someone else. Better.’

The thought hurts more than it should.

Nico is used to thoughts hurting.

Still, he is working hard every day on not doing that to himself, not any more than absolutely necessary.

‘I control my thoughts. I control my feelings.’

It is a mantra. His mantra.

Nico is in control.

And ‘… there is no need for anything else.’

**Author's Note:**

> First in a series of retrospective episode fillers (from the beginning of their relationship) based on the fact stated by Nico that he is not out to his family, and on his other comments towards Levi in 16x14 and 16x15; with a planned focus on Nico's internal struggles and how they affect their relationship (we'll see what else finds its way into my fillers).


End file.
